Q&A: Mueller gives Lopes Athletics overview

GCU President Brian Mueller joined Arizona Sports 98.7 FM as part of its "Newsmakers Week," when Valley college and professional sports leaders discuss their programs with co-hosts Dan Bickley and Vince Marotta. The following interview can be heard here.

Q. What would you say about the state of GCU Athletics?

A. Last year was a crazy year, but we had a great year. We went to the national tournament in four sports, including basketball. Our coaching staffs and athletic director fought through that thing (COVID-19 pandemic). I'm really appreciative of that and we did really well. This year, we're off to a great start. Men's and women's soccer both went to the national tournament in the fall. Right now, it's like Disneyland over her from an Athletics standpoint. On Friday, I went from a baseball game to a softball game to a basketball game to a volleyball game. Things are up and running. We've got great attendance figures. We set an all-time record on Friday in baseball. We're having a great year.

Q. As a former basketball coach yourself, what do you think of the job Bryce Drew has been able to do for you guys?

A. We were so fortunate to get him. He was the only guy we interviewed. We had him targeted right from Day 1. It only took us a couple days to get it done. The first thing he did was bring in an elite coaching staff. Ed Schilling has been at Indiana and UCLA and also with John Calipari and the New Jersey Nets. Jamall Walker left Illinois and came here. He was the lead assistant there. He came here because he wanted to be part of this. And then Casey Shaw, who was 12 years in Europe (as a player) and was at Vanderbilt. These guys really understand college basketball inside and out and they're relentless recruiters. We've got a commitment already from a 7-footer, for next year, who is an elite kid, and they're very close on another one. It takes time, but they are laying a groundwork. The future of this place is really good from a basketball standpoint.

Q. How would you rate the revamped Western Athletic Conference early on?

A. Really, really excited about it. We were right in the middle of all that. You know the WAC struggled for years. Now, we're in a great place. We really wanted to build a conference around three growing states, population-wise and economies. Texas, Arizona and Utah. We have a bright future now. We are currently ranked 14th from a basketball perspective out of 32 conferences. And we're on our way. We're right in the middle of it. We could still go (to the NCAA tournament) again. These guys are coming together, but we had two 7-footers last year (Asbjorn Midtgaard and Alessandro Lever) that could've come back. They were really good. They were elite players. One ended up in the NBA Summer League. They both got huge contracts in Europe. They're European kids. Had those two kids come back, we would probably be undefeated. But you've got to take the money when it's there. We started over. Jovan Blacksher Jr. is back as a point guard and he's done a terrific job. Added Holland Woods II from ASU and he's doing a great job. But the other guys are young. They're playing hard. The coaching staff is doing a great job in my opinion. I think we're going to have a good chance when we come to the WAC Tournament in Las Vegas. But, again, they are relentless from a recruiting standpoint and I think the future is really bright.

Q. How close are Athletics to following the growth curve of GCU?

A. When I first started talking to you guys, we were 900 students on this campus. This year, we're almost 24,000 students. This incoming class was 9,000. Average incoming GPA was over 3.6. We're really excited about what's happened here academically. We're building the campus out for 50,000 students. The growth continues. We're really excited about that. From the rest of the Athletics perspective, our athletic director (Jamie Boggs) has done a fantastic job with hiring coaches. Men's and women's soccer both went to the national tournament this year. Last year, Andy Stankiewicz took our baseball team to the NCAA tournament, had a tough draw, losing to Arizona and Oklahoma State, but they played really, really well. They had a top-30 recruiting class in the country this year. So they're doing well. Softball is off to a big start at 8-3. The great thing about this is it's all right in the middle of our campus for the most part. Our athletes are such a big part of our student body. We don't have a separate athletic dorm. We don't have a separate eating facility for our athletes. They go to class with the rest of the students. They eat with the rest of the students. They're really a part of the campus, which is why we get such great attendance and such great support. Our student section, the Havocs, are known for what they do from a basketball perspective. We've sold out every game this year. But we're also getting that same sort of support in baseball. We had a record-setting attendance for baseball on Friday. The facilities are right on campus. They are beautiful facilities. Obviously, we've got great weather. But it's exciting for me to see an athletic program that is really, really well-integrated with the rest of the student body and gets a lot of support as a result of that.

Q. What do you see as the ceiling for GCU Athletics?

A. I was on a presidents commission this last two years. There were 32 presidents that talked about the future of NCAA athletics. There's a lot of issues, but the single biggest issue is sustainability, especially for mid-major schools or even Power 5 schools that are not top 20 from a football perspective. There are some schools now where as much as 14% of a student's tuition goes to support the Division I athletic program. And that's just not sustainable. Students are not happy with that. So finding ways to financially support athletic programs so that you can be in the top 25 in every sport, which is what our goal is and we were there with a couple sports. But you have to have a sustainable financial model. In the past in higher ed, small and elite has kind of won the day. In the future, it's going to be very large, very flexible, being able to meet the needs of students across the lifespan. The fact that we're moving toward 50,000 students on campus and we've got 90,000 students online and we've put $1.6 million in this campus without having to raise tuition for 14 years, we have a financial model fortunately that allows us to invest in things like athletics, music, theater, dance, debate. All those things that make college an exciting experience for students, we've been able to invest in those things without it having been significantly impactful from our student body's perspective. And it's just because we have two large student bodies. The future, given that we're in Phoenix, Arizona, which is a destination city and state, the 17th-ranked campus in the country in terms of classrooms, laboratories, resident halls, 32 restaurants and we've got really new, state-of-the-art athletic facilities, I think it is really good. Kids really want to come to Phoenix and they want to stay in Phoenix when they graduate and they want to be part of an athletic program that gets a tremendous amount of support. I think it's very bright.

Q. You have succeeded on every platform you have attempted. What happens when you bring up football? Where does that conversation go?

A. It only happens two or three times every day. It's a tough one because you have to eliminate so much else with Title IX rules. You've got to build a 50,000-seat stadium. You've got to find 50,000 fans. You're really going to lose money for 10 to 15 years and you'd have to get that money some place else. For us, the ability to get nationally recognized. The fact that the national tournament was Indiana last year worked in our favor because of Homer Drew, Bryce Drew and his brother, Scott Drew at Baylor, we got so much attention from that. You've seen obviously what Gonzaga has done. If you can get in that tournament consistently and win games, what you get in terms of the investment return for that is unmatched. It's a long haul from a football perspective and so we probably are not going to go down that road. We're probably going to stay with basketball being our premiere sport. I'm also saying that because I'm afraid Mr. (Jerry) Colangelo might be listening.

With "Newsmakers Week" continuing, GCU men's basketball head coach Bryce Drew will join Bickley and Marotta at 9:15 a.m. on Friday.

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